Changing the Story of Our Future

F or anyone who reads the papers, scans the Internet, listens to the radio, or kibitzes with a neighbor, the stories you hear seem relentlessly hopeless and complex. Economic uncertainty , ecological collapse, ethnic conflicts, religious extremism —the list goes on, an endless tickertape of frustration and despair.Theydepictaworldfilledwithconflict,fear,andpainwhilereinforcing a belief that there is little we can do about it. We are locked in competition for scarce resources, disconnected from the natural world, at the mercy of political, religious, and economic power blocs, and spiraling ever deeper into greater disparity between the haves and have-nots. Look no further than the new documentary , What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, for an immersion experience of worst-case scenario dénouement. The tendency in times like these is to look to science or religion for answers, but both have fallen on hard times as sources ofhope.Traditionalreligionshavebeenchallengedtoremainrelevant while struggling to deal with their more zealous factions, whilescience—morespecificallymaterialistic-reductionistscience—hasbeen denounced as one of the reasons we’re in this mess to begin with. And in many waysthat’strue,forthestoryofwhoweareasportrayedbythedominantscientific narratives of the last few centuries is bleak indeed. Asscientificmaterialismextendeditsreachintothesocialsciencesandeverclosertoourinteriors ,itpresentedonechallengeafteranothertoourelevatedperception of ourselves and our sense of purpose. From biology we learned that life in all its diversity is a big accident, and that all human behavior, including our higher social and moral instincts, could be explained by the random mutation and natural selection of our “selfish genes.” From economic theory we learned that at heart all humans are “economic rationalists” programmed to pursue their self-interest in every situation. From behavioral psychology we learned that we are machines that can be conditioned by a simple regiment of reward and punishment to do almost anything. And from neuroscience we learned that, in the words of the late Nobel laureate Sir Francis Crick, “You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules…. You are nothing but a pack of neurons.” And spirituality?Anevolutionaryadaptationtokeepusinterestedinstayingalive,theresultof complex chemical interactions. The Story of Our Potential Thisishow“The2008ShiftReport:ChangingtheStoryofOurFuture”begins. It was produced by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) to connect the dots of both worldview breakdown and worldview emergence, because it’s vitally important to M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 8 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 27 Changing the Story of Our Future by Matthew Gilbert ISTOCKPHOTO/JPA1999 6.Politics_4.qxd:Politics 2/10/08 3:18 PM Page 27 distinguish between the two. Yes, the evidence is compelling that the arc of the human species is one of self-destructive decline, and the report, as well as its predecessor, “The 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World Transforming,” does not shy away from recognizing that. And yet, once the pieces are put together, there is no denying that another reality is fighting through the cracks of the dominant narrative. Braving the currents of post-modern malaise, the Institute, founded in 1973 by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, believes that we are just beginning to tap into our potential as human beings despite, or perhaps because of, the multiple crises that we are facing. This new story remains largely unreported—it’s one of people and institutions worldwide that are proactively moving ahead with initiative, daring, and collaborative spirit. It reflects not an evolutionary model of randomness and survival but a revolution of human potential that may alter the course of history, and a growing body of data that psychologists ,paleontologists,neuroscientists,andquantumphysicistsarebeginningtoacknowledge . Over the past several decades, new scientific discoveries along with a surge in grassroots initiatives addressing social and economic injustices have begun calling into question the modern view of the universe—and essentially of ourselves—as ultimately cold andmechanistic.Revealingboththemysteriousdirectionalityoftheevolvingcosmosand the irrepressible humanity within our own natures, new evidence is emerging that we are innately capable of far more than we realize. On the scientific front, credible studies are finding that we’re as hardwired to connect and...